#TradingTypes101 currency, also known as crypto asset, cryptocurrency, cryptographic currency, or cyber currency[2] or digital token[3], is an electronic currency (digital asset) issued peer-to-peer, without the need for a bank or central bank or human intermediary. It is usable through a decentralized computer network based on a blockchain integrating cryptography technologies for the processes of issuance and settlement of transactions.

Emerging in 2009 with Bitcoin and its blockchain (or chain of blocks), hundreds of other crypto assets have subsequently developed, also known as Altcoins (a portmanteau combining two English words, "alt" meaning alternative and "coin"). This term refers to all other cryptocurrencies, alternatives to Bitcoin, generally also using blockchain technology, but with different consensus algorithms, features, and more or less similar objectives, less resource-intensive in terms of computing and energy, such as Ethereum, or further enhancing the privacy of exchanges, etc.